A federal judge sentenced Nicholas Dombek to 10 years in prison Tuesday, the longest term of any member of a large-scale art and memorabilia theft ring that looted museums and other venues for two decades in six states.
Dombek’s sentencing was the last of seven members of the Lackawanna County-based ring who either pleaded guilty or were convicted last February by a jury.
Another was found not guilty and one pleaded guilty but died before sentencing. Federal authorities charged nine people in June 2023.
Dombek, 55, who lived in Thornhurst Twp., sat quietly as Senior U.S. District Judge Malachy E. Mannion sent him to prison and ordered him to pay $2,753,266.31 in restitution and an $800 special assessment. Mannion also said Dombek must submit to federal supervision for three years after his release.
Mannion said Dombek should get three to six months credit for time served in a related 2019 intimidation of witnesses case filed by local authorities.
Assistant U.S. Attorney James Buchanan said Dombek will get credit for time spent in prison since January 2024, about 25 months. After federal authorities filed indictments or criminal informations against ring members in June 2023, Dombek disappeared until he surrendered voluntarily on New Year's Day 2024.
Mannion’s sentence was below the 14 years to 17½ months Dombek faced under federal sentencing guidelines. A federal prosecutor sought 16 years.
Mannion said Dombek melted down stolen sports-related rings, belts and trophies without giving a thought to their value to museums, their patrons or sports fans. The judge dismissed a Dombek family member’s suggestion that Dombek fell in with the wrong crowd.
"I don't buy for a second that you're a victim of circumstance," Mannion said.
The stolen loot included:
- New York Yankee Hall of Fame baseball player Yogi Berra’s World Series and other championship rings, stolen in October 2014 from the New Jersey museum that honors him.
- A trophy and athlete-of-the-year belt belonging to famed Yankee outfielder Roger Maris, stolen in July 2016 from the Fargo, North Dakota museum that honors him.
- Trophies belonging to professional golfer Art Wall of Honesdale, stolen in March 2011 from the Scranton Country Club in South Abington Twp.
- A jersey worn by Hall of Fame New York Giants baseball pitcher Christy Mathewson and two of his player's contracts, stolen in August 1999 from Keystone College in LaPlume Twp.
- A Tiffany lamp, stolen in July 2010 from the Lackawanna Historical Society in Scranton.
- A purported Jackson Pollock painting and an Andy Warhol painting, stolen from the Everhart Museum in Scranton in November 2005.
Both paintings and the Mathewson memorabilia remain missing.
Before sentencing, Gino Bartolai, Dombek’s lawyer, turned to the rear of the courtroom and noted the presence of about a dozen of Dombek’s friends and family members. They included his wife, their two daughters, three sisters, a brother and a sister-in-law.
“He has a good family and they support him fully,” Bartolai said.
As family members sniffed, sobbed or dabbed eyes with tissues, Bartoli portrayed Dombek as a high school dropout who was nonetheless intelligent, hard-working, “good with his hands,” “a rock to (his) family” and “man of faith” with a love of science and math.
Cindy Fiorani, Dombek’s sister and a public school teacher, choked up as she called her brother “an incredible man” and “an incredible father.”
“My brother is hard-working, he is honest,” Fiorani said. “Unfortunately, he hung around with the wrong individuals, and our family has suffered financially so hard.”
“We need our brother,” she said. “He’s a rock of the family, he’s a pillar of the community ... My brother would give anyone the shirt off his back.”
Buchanan, the case prosecutor, said it’s not uncommon for family members to feel sympathetic, but pointed to the rest of the story.
“Mr. Dombek didn’t just hang out with the wrong people,” Buchanan said.
Instead, Dombek and Thomas Trotta jointly led the ring and recorded “casing videos” at targeted venues to develop strategies for thefts, the prosecutor said.
“Everything Mr. Dombek saw in these casing videos, he saw dollar signs,” Buchanan said.
Dombek fled arrest, intimidated witnesses, hid paintings and “melted down objects of cultural heritage.”
“They will never get these objects back because Mr. Dombek melted them down,” he said. “He is here today because of a lifetime of criminal conduct.”
Susan Schutte, historian at Ringwood Manor in New Jersey, a ring target, told Mannion the 15th anniversary of the theft is in March.
The ring stole a Jasper Crospey painting, two rare guns and other items, some of which Dombek melted down.
“Some items will not be returned because they were melted down, thrown into a fire like they were trash,” Schutte said.
She sympathized with Dombek’s family members, but said she’s dealt with the emotional aftermath of what he did for 15 years.
What if someone broke into Dombek’s home “and stole his mother’s broach?” she asked.
Mannion said he sympathized with Dombek's family, too. Often, a criminal’s unseen victims are his family, the judge said.
“They didn’t do anything wrong (but) ... they are going to suffer,” he said.
He noted the “Jekyll and Hyde” nature of many cases, with family members seeing only the Jekyll side.
“They see a Nicholas Dombek that is completely different from the Nicholas Dombek who for almost 20 years (was) stealing and conniving and melting down valuable jewels and taking them to New York City for cash,” Mannion said.
As an example, Mannion said Dombek deprived Yankee fans of the emotional moment of seeing Berra’s World Series rings, the judge said.
“There’s stuff out there that we still don’t know where it is,” Mannion said. “Where is that Pollock? ... Is it in somebody’s garage?”
The ring didn’t only target museums, but also mom-and-pop businesses, he said in a reference to Cade’s Coins, an Exeter coin selling shop, Mannion said.
“No doubt you’re a loving father and brother,” but also a man who “wildly and callously didn’t care for anybody’s activities ... (and) did it for your own benefit,” the judge said.
